


Arrival

by Walutahanga



Category: Smallville, X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-03 20:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 17,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2886461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walutahanga/pseuds/Walutahanga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Scott is transported at the moment of his death to Smallville, destiny veers off-course. Smallville High is finally going to get a teacher who knows how to handle mutants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> Each chapter corresponds to an episode of Smallville, showing how Scott did - or didn't - affect the outcome. Check the title for the episode it corresponds to.

Martha Kent knew all about strange arrivals in Smallville. Her own son had fallen from the sky in a spaceship amid a shower of poisonous space meteors. There weren’t a lot of entrances that could top that.

Perhaps that was why she was less phased than most people would be by the man appearing in her driveway in a flash of light.  

He sprawled on the ground, dark hair flopping over his face. Her first thought, accompanied by a rush of ice-cold panic was that it was Clark. It was only when he pushed himself unsteadily up onto his hands and knees that she realized that this man was ten or fifteen years older than her son.  

His eyes were screwed shut, and he groped about on the ground as if searching for something, fingers skimming the dust in scrying circles. His battered jacket and unshaven face would have made her skirt carefully around him if she passed him in the street, but something in his profile – a shadow of a resemblance – made her think of Clark.

Against her will, her maternal instincts kicked in and she took one step down the stairs. 

He jerked his head up at the sound, even though she’d been very quiet. He turned his head this way and that, as if scanning or listening for something, but his eyes still screwed tightly shut.

“Jean…?” He said tentatively. “Is that you?”

His voice was rusty, as if he’d been yelling or screaming, and contained an almost painful hope and a deeper fear – _of_ Jean? _For_ Jean?

“My name’s Martha Kent,” she said carefully.  “You just appeared in front of my house.”

She saw the surprise clearly on his face, his mouth falling open in dismay even whilst his eyes remained tightly closed. He reached out, feeling the ground again, but this time with a deeper intent of discovery. His fingers curled around the loose soil, letting it crumble between his fingers.

“This isn’t Alkali Lake,” he said flatly, finally. It wasn’t a question.

“No.” She wondered where Alkali Lake was, and what it meant to him.

Slowly he pushed himself to his feet. He did it awkwardly, almost losing his balance several times. 

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” She asked.

“Nothing,” he said just a little too quickly. “I just… I have a special pair of glasses I need to wear and I seem to have lost them. Can you see them?”

“They’re not here. I’m sorry.”

He put his hands to his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Great,” he muttered, more to himself than her. But the gesture had made her notice something. In the shadow cast by his hands, there was a faint red glow underneath each eyelid. It was as if his eyeballs were burning with a strange bright light that seeped through the thin layer of skin.  

She stopped on the stairs, one hand gripping the railing so tight her knuckles were white.

“How did you get here?” She demanded, thoughts of meteor mutants and Jeremy flying through her head. If there was one, there was bound to be more, and if one was dangerous, then…

Looking at him, though, standing straight upright in the yard, brushing his jacket off with an unconscious tidiness, there was something undeniably familiar about him.

A moment later, it hit her and her heart lurched inside her chest. She saw the dark hair as if for the first time; the full lips, the pale skin, the chiselled, aristocratic features. If he opened his eyes, she just knew they’d be sky-blue, open and honest and earnest. _Clark_ _’s_ eyes…

“You’ve come to take him back, haven’t you?”

The words slid past her lips. Of all her fears concerning Clark, this had rated somewhere down the bottom. The idea that oneday his biological family would come and explain ‘ _no, we’re so sorry, this is one big misunderstanding’_ and take him back.

It was a fear that had faded as time went by. She’d known, deep down in her heart, that Clark’s people were gone and they weren’t ever coming to find their lost little boy. That ship had been a desperate gamble, a small vessel of hope carrying the last of their legacy. In some ways it had been a relief, because that meant Clark was hers and Johnathon’s alone. In others, she almost _wished_ they’d come, because that might be what was best for Clark, and she’d always do what was best for Clark, regardless of how much it hurt.  

But until this moment, she’d never truly believed it would come to pass.  

The man looked uncertain and confused.  

“No, ma’am,” he said soothingly – had he heard the dread in her voice? – and held up his hands in a peaceful motion. “I’m not here to take anyone. I’m not even sure how I got here myself.”  

Reassured, she relaxed. He hesitated, before asking politely;  

“I don’t suppose you could tell me where ‘here’ is?” 

“Oh.” Slowly, realization was dawning. This man wasn’t here to take Clark home – he was just as lost as him. _You poor boy._ “Smallville,” she said. “In Kansas.”  

He mouthed ‘Kansas’ in something that might be surprise or horror. He looked so shaken, she almost suggested that he sit down.

 “You’re one of those meteor mutants, aren’t you?” she said delicately.

He tensed, outrage banishing the lost-puppy look.  

“I’m a mutant, yes,” he said stiffly. “Meteors have nothing to do with it.”  

His answer was just this side of rude, but by then Martha’s maternal instincts were fully risen. She knew exactly what to do with lost boys with dark hair and strange powers that fell out of the sky.   

She walked over to him, and gently laid her hand on his arm, noticing the tension fairly vibrating under her fingertips.  

“Would you like a cup of tea?”    


	2. Metamorphosis - Part 1

“So tell me about yourself.”

There was a click and thud that Scott identified as Chloe turning on a tape recorder and setting it on the table. Judging from the sound of her voice, she was practically bouncing up and down in her enthusiasm. He imagined her like Jubilee; dark hair twisted up into the latest fad, a brash shade of lipstick, and seemingly mismatched clothes that according to the students were the height of fashion. 

“I would like to, Miss Sullivan,” he said, adding firmly: “Another day. Right now, I believe you were here to talk about yourself.”

As he talked, he ran his fingertips ran across the brail report in front of him, quickly skimming through it. ‘ _Tenacious’_ was the word Chloe’s teachers used, as well as ‘ _nosy’_ and ‘ _confounded nuisance_.’ She had all the earmarks of a student who didn’t actively set out to subvert authority but did it as naturally as breathing. Other of her teachers were more kind, describing in glowing terms her quick mind and talent for writing.

“Oh, I just said that to get in the door,” Chloe said dismissively. “I was actually hoping for an interview with Smallville High’s very first guidance counsellor.”

If nothing else, he had to admire her brass. Not a lot of students would admit to a boldfaced lie and demand an interview in the same breath.

“I’m flattered,” he said with a pleasant smile. “ But I’m really rather boring. I’m afraid your article would be rather short."

“Not at all!” There was a rustle as she drew something out of her bag. A pad and pencil, he presumed. “For example, how did you get this job?”

“The same as anyone else, Miss Sullivan. The position was available, and so was I.”

“So, you have experience in working with teenagers?”

“A great deal.”

“That’s funny.” Her bright tones turned brisk and business-like. “Because I can’t find a mention of you at any school in America. Or in any teaching course in any university. In fact, I can’t find a mention of you anywhere. It’s as if Scott Summers doesn’t exist.”

He hadn’t been an X-men for years without learning how to handle surprise attacks. He kept a bland, pleasant expression on his face. His glasses helped with that, no matter that they were now dark plastic, not processed ruby quartz, and fairly useless for anything else except hiding the tape keeping his eyelids shut. 

“That’s commendable research, Miss Sullivan. Are your sources reliable?”

“I hacked into the Government Education Department,” she said smugly. “Doesn’t get any more reliable than that.”

“I see.”

There was a rustle as she leaned forward.

“Do you have any comment on Lexcorp’s recent, very generous donation towards the school’s psychology department?”

“He was very generous.” Scott’s tone was so bland it was difficult to tell if he was dead-serious, joking, or being sarcastic. Very few had ever gotten his dead-pan sense of humour. “But Miss Sullivan, I must commend your courage.”

He didn't need to see her smile faltering.

“You do?”

“Yes. Not many students would have the integrity to admit hacking into a government department.”

“I – ”

“I don’t think the principle needs to hear about this, since no harm was done. Of course, if it happens again, you won’t get off with just a warning.”

“But – ”

He stood and made his way to the door, threading his way unerringly between furniture mapped out in his mind. Spatial ability had it’s uses.

He opened the door.

“It’s been a pleasure, Miss Sullivan. But if you don’t mind, I have other students to see. Ones with real problems.”

He couldn’t resist that last salle. Chloe huffed and gathered up her belongings. She stalked out, outrage fairly vibrating off her. He didn’t need her to tell him that this wasn’t over. He suddenly understood why her teachers grew so frustrated with her. No secret was safe around this girl. With very little information, and a lot of intuition, she’d added up the information in the correct order. She’d bear watching.

Later.

Right now, he was on his first day of a new job, and his next appointment was waiting.

“Greg Arkin!” 


	3. Metamorphosis - Part 2

Greg’s voice echoes about the warehouse.

 “…Clark? Clark where are you?”  
  
Clark is curled up inside a concrete shell, fighting nausea, desperately trying to think. Lana is depending on him. If he can’t beat Greg, he will go after her again. But right at this moment, it doesn’t look as if Clark can even help himself. He shouldn’t have let Greg lure him here; Greg with whom he had played as a kid, and who had remembered Clark’s aversion to meteors.

“Come on out!” Greg is saying. “I just want to play. Clarky? Come out!

Clark takes a deep breath and abruptly realizes the nausea is fading. He looks down at his hand, which is no longer bulging with green veins, and then at the concrete shell that shelters him with dawning realization.

“It’s lined with lead…”

“Give it up, Clark!” Greg is saying. “You can't fight natural law! Only the strong survive.”

Clark tries to judge how far Greg is from him. Greg is fast, but Clark is faster. If he can get him out of the range of the meteor rocks, he can probably restrain him long enough to…

“Greg!”  

Clark freezes. That’s not Greg’s voice.

“Greg, is that you?”

Some poor unsuspecting person has just stumbled on their battle. Clark hears uncertain footsteps and the tap-tap of a cane. With a sinking heart, he recognizes the voice. 

“Mr Summers?” Greg says, sounding as surprised as Clark feels. Even the menace in his voice has faded in favour of confusion. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.” The tap-tap of the cane ceases. Clark risks discovery to peer round the edge of the shell. Mr Summers is standing in the middle of the warehouse floor, seeing-eye cane in one hand and dark glasses covering his blind eyes. “There are a lot of people looking for you right now, Greg.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.”

Greg sounds supremely disinterested. Clark ducks back into hiding as the boy turns back to scanning the warehouse.  

Mr Summers speaks up again.

“I know what you’re going through, Greg.”

Several seconds of silence tick past.

_Oh you’ve got to be kidding me…_

Mr Summers is trying to psycho-analyze Greg? He’s not even a real school counsellor! It’s just a job that Lex got him as a favour to Clark, and even then Lex had gone a little overboard because he’d somehow become convinced that Scott was some long-lost relative of Clark’s. _(“It’s no problem Clark.” (wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more)_ ).  

What makes it worse is that Smallville has accepted the rumour as truth, and no one is listening when Clark says Mr Summers is just a friend of the family from out of town. The only person who doesn’t think Mr Summers is some biological relative here to contest the adoption is Chloe, who’s convinced Mr Summers is some kind of Luthorcorp spy, and possibly a meteor mutant.

Clark could tell her not to bother. Mr Summers is a mutant alright. He’s admitted as much, though he scoffs at the idea that meteors had anything to do with it. He won’t even tell them what exactly it is he does, though it’s not hard to figure out it has something to do with how he ended up lost, blind and confused on the Kents’ driveway.

“I know that you’re changing,” Mr Summers is saying, voice low like he’s trying to calm a spooked horse. “That you can do things no one else can, and it’s frightening…” 

“I’m not afraid,” Greg says sharply.

“Of course you’re not,” Mr Summers agrees smoothly.

“No,” Greg says, voice low and savage, refusing to be soothed. “You don’t get it.”

“Then explain it to me.”

Footsteps. Greg is pacing back and forth, rubber scuffing on the concrete, working out his agitation through movement.

“When you saw me in your office,” he begins. “I was pathetic. I was weak. I was at the bottom of the foodchain. Everyone pushed me around, and girls didn’t even see me.”

“And that makes you angry?” Mr Summer’s voice is gently querying.

“No. Don’t you see? It’s _evolution_. The strong prey on the weak and females choose the strongest mates. That’s what happens.”

“So what’s changed?”

“Me. I evolved. I got stronger, faster. I can climb things. I can smell… _everything_. It’s like the whole world’s opened up. I can have whatever I want, whenever I want!” His voice changed abruptly, going from enthused to something darker and filled with contempt. “Trust me, the last thing I am is _afraid_.”

Mr Summers is silent for a long moment.

“So might is right?” He says.

“What?” Greg says, confused.

“You’re assuming because you _can_ do something, you _should_.”

Greg is silent, not answering. When Clark peeps round the corner, he can see Mr Summers tilting his head in that particular way that means he’s listening for something. He could swear Mr Summers is looking at him for a moment, despite the fact the man is blind and wearing dark glasses to boot. Clark quickly pulls back behind the concrete shell.

“They found your mother,” Mr Summers says.  

“Yeah?” Greg sounds as if he’s barely even tuned into the conversation.   

“Why did you do it, Greg? She was your mother. She loved and supported you. She didn’t beat you, or let anyone else hurt you. What on earth could she have done that would make you want to kill her?”

The passion behind Mr Summers’ words that is almost foreign to his usual calm, crisp tones. 

In contrast, Greg’s voice is chillingly casual as he answers:

“Because I could.”  

There is another long silence.   

“I see,” Mr Summers says at last.

“No,” Greg says with cruel irony. “You really _can’t_. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have someone to find and eat. You can wait until I get back, right?”

“It’s funny about Lana.”

There is a beat.

“What about Lana

“She’s the one, isn’t she? The one who didn’t see you.”

“Do you have a point?”  

“I’m just saying it’s ironic. You changed, became stronger, faster, better. And she still won’t look at you.”

Greg laughs but there is a forced edge to it.

“I _have_ Lana.”

“But you had to kidnap her. She didn’t choose you for your superior genetic material. Despite all the changes, in evolutionary terms, you’re still a loser…” 

“That’s it, _shut up_!”

Clark decides he had better intervene before Mr Summers gets his neck broken. 

He rounds the shell, and stops.

Greg has Mr Summers by the front of the shirt, but there’s a look of confounded surprise on his face as he stares at the hyperdermic sticking in his arm.  

“Just a sedative,” Mr Summers is saying calmly. “You’ll wake up in Bellereve with a headache, but nothing more.”

 “You – you – ” 

Greg’s face twists in rage and he flings Mr Summers away, sending him flying across the room. Clark super-speeds in time to catch him, cushioning his fall.

Greg pulls the empty hyperdermic out of his arm and stares at it with rapidly glazing eyes. It slips from between his fingers and clatters onto the concrete floor. Greg staggers a few steps towards Clark and Mr Summers, one clawing hand reaching for them, lips peeled back from his teeth in a silent snarl. Then he keels over and is still. The only sounds are Mr Summers' and Clark’s loud breaths in the silence.

Clark rises to his feet and walks over to Greg’s slumped form. He checks Greg’s pulse and finds a steady, reassuring throb beneath his fingers. He’s alive.

Mr Summers pulls himself to his feet, groping for his walking stick. He tilts his head, listening intently.  

"Who's there?” He says.

Clark takes a step toward him, opening his mouth to reply, when something crunches underfoot. He looks down at the broken hyperdermic, unwelcome thoughts rising.  

Mr Summers figured out what was happening to Greg. He worked out where he would go, and a way to bring him down. He provoked Greg into coming within range and stuck him with the hyperdermic in a display that was too coolly competent to be anything but familiar.  

 _Who was this person?_  

“Clark?” Mr Summers says more softly, questioningly, and a chill runs down Clark’s spine. His mouth is suddenly dry.  

He doesn’t say anything. He leaves the unconscious Greg for Mr Summers to deal with and superspeeds away.


	4. Hothead

“Remind me again why we’re watching football practise?”

If Pete was a little more cranky than usual, he had good reason. Guys didn’t watch football practise. Players’ girlfriends and girls with unattainable crushes watched football practise. Guys might occasionally pretend to watch, but actually fooled around on the stands and tried to chat up cheerleaders. There was something seriously suss about a guy who actually _watched_ the players.

“I’m telling you there’s something weird going on,” Chloe said. She was cupping that morning’s second cup of coffee between her hands and was leaning forward slightly, intently watching the distant figure of Coach Arnold walk about the field and shout directions at players. “At first I thought it was just that elitist, team-for-the-team macho crap, but now I think it’s something else.”

“Really?” Pete was bored and hungry and seriously not interested. He felt the sarcasm in his voice was called for. “Like what?”

Chloe didn’t seem to notice. 

“Like the players are absolutely terrified of Coach Arnold. And that guy who had handprint on his arm, like he’d been _burned_.”

“Which means…”

“Coach Arnold is a meteor mutant!”

“Right.”

Privately, Pete thought Chloe was a little too obsessed with mutants. Just because she was right the one… okay, two… times, didn’t mean there were meteor mutants lurking around every corner in Smallville.

“Are you sure you’re not just pissed off they wouldn’t let you in to interview Greg at Bellereve?”

“I’m telling you there’s something weird going on! The guy is discovered unconscious in a warehouse with sedative in his system and no one seems to know how he got there.”

“Okay. And you’re also fine with the fact Clark won’t let you do a story on Mr Summers?”

“Please!” Chloe waved it off. “I am so over that one. There are much better and more interesting stories out there than the mysterious Mr Summers. Honestly, if I did follow it up, I bet you he’d probably turn out to be a furniture salesman for Iowa. _That’s_ how over it I am.”

“Sure.”

Pete didn’t get why she’d been so keen in the first place. Mr Summers wasn’t _that_ interesting. Apart from obviously being related to Clark somehow – the cheekbones are a dead giveaway – he’s downright boring. He was a cool teacher, the one time he’d had to substitute for their maths class and had some interesting ways of getting around his blindness, but that was it. There was nothing sinister or unnatural about him.

“Hey guys.” Clark made his way up the benches, bag slung over his shoulder. “How’s the stake-out going?”

“Lousy,” Chloe said, taking a sip of her coffee. “Nothing weird or mutant-y going on.”

“Just wait until the sun goes down,” he said, sitting down beside her and grinning that wide, white, wholesome farm boy grin. Pete turned his eyes away from the radiant look on Chloe’s face. Honestly, Clark was so _clueless_ sometimes.

“Anyway,” Clark continued. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about: Scott.”

Pete groaned and Chloe said:

“Oh not this again! I’ve told you, Clark. You said no research, and that means no research. Honestly, I’m begginning to think you don’t trust me…”

“Actually,” Clark said sheepishly. “I might have changed my mind about the whole ‘no research’ thing.”

Chloe blinked.

“In that case…” She shoved her coffee into Pete’s hands and grabbed a folder out of her bag. “This is a list of persons employed in secondry schools for the last ten years. Mr Summers is not on it. Not _anywhere_. And this is a fax from the last school he supposedly taught at. According to the principle, Mr Summers never worked there.”

Both Pete and Clark stared at her. Clark’s expression contained a hint of recrimination.

“What?” She said defensively. “I was curious. It’s not like I was actually going to _use_ any of it.”

“So, Clark, what made you change your mind?” Pete asked, deciding a subject change was in order.

Clark flushed and stammered a little as he got his story out: usually a sure sign that if he wasn’t outright lying, he was ommitting something important. But the story he gave was so twisted, anyone would hesitate a little before telling it.

Apparently when he went to look for Lana, he’d run into Greg who had been in full-on eat-people mode and chased him into a nearby warehouse. He hadn’t mentioned it before because Mr Summers – mild, sensible Mr Summers – had shown up at the last minute. 

“… _and_ _stuck him with a needle_?” Chloe repeated. “Okay, that’s creepy.” She looked positively delighted to have a reason to research Clark's relative further.

“That’s not creepy, that’s common sense,” Pete said. “Come on, guys. Mr Summers is blind. If I were up against an insane, super-powered insect-guy, I’d stick him with a sedative too.”

He took a sip of Chloe’s coffee and made a face. She’d forgotten to add sugar again.

“Why did you say anything before?” Chloe said, looking at Clark. He flushed pink.

“I didn’t want to get him into trouble,” he said. “Now I’ve had time to think about it, well…” He shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt to get more information before I decide what to do.”

Chloe paused in the middle of turning a page. Her expression was intrigued.  

“So you think maybe he’s some kind of… mutant hunter?” She said the words tentatively, testing them out. Pete could already see her next headline forming.

Clark looked puzzled: a common look for him.

“But why would he do that? What does he get out of it?”

“Who knows?” Chloe said impatiently. “The thrill of the hunt, the warmth of doing a good deed? The point is he does it.”

“You know, guys, maybe we should be more grateful,” Pete said. “I’m just saying… Clark, things could have gone down a lot differently in the warehouse. I can’t say I’m sorry they didn’t.”

Clark looked uncomfortable.

“Yeah, I guess…”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t check up on him,” Chloe said. “Better safe than sorry in a town like Smallville. Which reminds me – was Mr Summers in town for the meteor shower?”

“I –” Clark coughed. “That is – I’m not really–”

He was interrupted by Chloe swearing. She stood up, staring down at the field. 

“That sneaky on-of-a… I don’t believe it!”

“What?” Pete peered down and saw Coach Arnold talking to Mr Summers. The counsellor had that pleasant expression on his face that preceded interrogation – like, why you didn’t do your homework last night, or why you felt it was necessary to pass notes in class. Coach Arnold was looking uneasy.

One glance at Chloe’s face, and Pete sensibly slid along the benches to a safer distance. Clark, always a little slow on the uptake, remained where he was.

“He’s stealing my mutants!” Chloe burst out.

“ _Your_ mutants?” Pete said. 

“He’s probably just being friendly,” Clark said soothingly.

“To the only other mutant I’ve managed to track down?” She snapped. “ _After_ he stole my insect-boy? After we just spent the past ten minutes discussing the possibility that he’s actually a mutant hunter?”

She snatched up her folders and stuffed them in her bag. She slung it over her shoulder and grabbed her coffee from Pete without apology.

“Hey!”

“This isn’t over,” she said. Her eyes were cold, blue chips of unbreakable diamond. The last time she was this filled with righteous fury, they were in eighth grade and she had convinced Pete to cuff himself to the cafeteria door until they started serving double-shot lattes again.

She stalked down the benches in the direction of the two teachers. Clark and Pete watched her go with the respect generally reserved for tornadoes.

“Think maybe we should stop her?” Clark suggested tentatively.  Pete gave him a ‘what are you, crazy?’ look.

He’d rather face a mutant any day.


	5. X-Ray

Lana’s unconscious form was light in Tina’s arms. Tina lowered her into the grave gently. There was no need to be rough, after all. In the moonlight, Lana’s face was smooth and peaceful, and Tina gently tucked a thread of hair back behind her ear before reaching across to pull the tomb cover back into place.

“Tina!”

Tina cursed and swung round. The school psychiatrist, Mr Summers, was walking through the graveyard toward her, seeing-eye stick guiding his careful way between the tombstones. He and Clark had been following her about all day. Clark she’d taken care of, but she’d hoped to avoid Mr Summers.

She lowered her voice into Whitney’s deeper range.

“It’s Whitney Fordman, Mr Summers.”

“Whitney?” Mr Summers stopped, sounding startled. He shifted his seeing-stick from one hand to the other. “What are you doing here? You were supposed to be searching the school for Lana.”

“I had this idea she would be out here. But I looked all around and she’s not here. Maybe you should head back.”

Mr Summers’ mouth tightened in satisfaction or annoyance.

“Knock it off, Tina,” he said in an entirely different tone of voice. Not angry or frightened at all. Flat, matter of fact. Business-like, that was it.

“I told you I’m not Tina.”

“I never spoke to Whitney Fordman tonight. We don’t have much time, so knock off the act and listen to me.”

Curious, Tina let her voice, and her shape, slip back into their natural form.

“I know what you’re doing,” he began. Tina scoffed and he raised his voice, overriding her. “So does Clark. And if I’m right in my suspicions about him, once he gets here, your tricks aren’t going to help you.”

“I threw Kent through a barn. He won’t be getting here any time soon.”

“Really. I talked to him only ten minutes ago on the phone, and he was fine.”

Something in his tone made her pause. She was good at telling when people are lying, good at identifying the little ticks and indicators of body language – all the better to copy them with. Mr Summers had always been hard to read, the lack of eyes making it hard to tell whether he was annoyed or amused or just plain bored. But his stance radiated confidence and his voice was one of absolute certainty.

She thought back furiously. She’d heard the crash of Clark hitting the wall, but she hadn’t stuck around afterwards. _Could_ he have survived? 

But the only thing that could crawl away unhurt from an impact like that would be a…

“He’s a mutant,” Mr Summers said. “Like you. I haven’t figured out exactly what he does yet, but if he could walk away from being thrown through a barn, then he’s not the kind you want to tangle with. And he’s taken it upon himself to be Lana’s personal bodyguard.”

The information was like a smack to the face. Clark was a freak too? He’d had a weird horrible power that he had to cover up and that he could never talk to anyone about? He was just like her? If she’d known…

It didn’t matter, she told herself. It didn’t change anything. Maybe years ago when they were still kids, but not now.

“You’re not alone, Tina,” Mr Summers said, and that almost made her laugh, because what else was she? “There are other mutants out there.”

“Other freaks?” She spat the words at him, saw him finally flinch. “No thanks. I’ve got better things in mind.”

Like Lana’s life, the one she’d never appreciated. So really, she wasn’t stealing anything from Lana. In fact, she will be utilizing something that would otherwise go to waste.

“Don’t say that word,” he said, voice very level – the same tone that always made the guys in math settle down because it meant Mr Summers was reaching the limits of his patience. “Don’t call yourself that.”

“Oh I’m sorry. Was that politically incorrect? What word shall I use?” She took a step toward him, hands curled into fists. “Different? Special? Gifted? Unique? They all mean the same fucking thing!”

She has to take a deep breath and stop herself from lashing out.

“I know it’s hard, Tina…”

“You don’t know anything.

His mouth tightened and she got the feeling he was disappointed in her somehow.

“I’m blind, Tina,” he said quietly, and she hadn’t felt like a jerk for thinking about killing him, but she did then. Of _course_ he knew what it was like to be different. Different kind of difference, same loneliness.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

“That’s alright.”

It struck her then how ludicrous this whole situation was; apologising to a man she was in all likelihood going to kill. Except… he’d been kind to her. He’d found her in tears in an empty classroom last week and had listened patiently when she poured out the whole story; her mother’s financial problems, the mortgage they couldn’t pay off, the shop they were going to lose. He hadn’t been able to help, but he’d listened, and that had meant something.

“Look,” she said, making up her mind on a split second. “You should leave. Right now. Clark will be getting here soon, and it’s going to get real messy, so you should probably get out of the way.”

He tilted his head, and she thought she saw something in the corner of his mouth, like a half-smile, gone too quickly to be sure.

“Or,” he said. “You can let Lana go, and we can leave.” He held out his hand. “There’s a pizza place next to the bookstore. I’ll pay.” 

“No.” She shook her head, forgetting for a moment that he couldn’t see it. “I need her.”

“Tina, it won’t change anything.” He was still holding out his hand, unwavering.

“It’ll change everything.”

“It won’t change what happened to your mother.”

“Tina’s mother,” she corrected. A twitch of expression crosses his face.

“What?”

“She was Tina’s mother. I’m Lana now.”

He finally let his hand drift back down to his side. And though she was never going to accept it, she still felt like she lost something.

“Tina,” he said very slowly and very clearly. “Becoming someone else won’t make the pain go away. At the most it will distract you for a little while. But eventually it will stop working.”

“Then I’ll find someone else to be.” She didn’t think of the words until they popped out of her mouth, but there’s a beautiful simplicity to the idea, a perfect logic that flowed like a strain of music against her mind. _Then I’ll find someone else to be._

“Tina.” His face beneath the glasses was as stiff as granite. “Please. Let me help you.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“Listen to me. There is something wrong with you.” She gave a little snort of laughter – no, _duh_. But Mr Summers talked right over the top of her. “Not the mutation itself. But connected maybe, because I keep finding you, and the same thing keeps happening over and over again, and none of you will let me help you…” He ran out of breath and words.

For a second, wariness rose up within Tina. She remembered Greg Arkin, now currently occupying a cell at Bellreve, and Coach Arnold, now currently occupying the grave five metres to the right. They’d been freaks too. There’d been rumours about what happened to them, about the people involved. One of the names mentioned had been Mr Summers.

Then she realized how ridiculous it was what she was thinking, and nearly laughed at her own paranoia. Mr Summers was _blind_. He stood about as much chance against an angry meteor-freak as a kitten would against a mastiff.

“You should go,” she told him gently and turned away.

“Tina!” He called after her. “Tina, wait!” She kept walking, ignoring him. She hoped he would have the sense to leave before Clark showed up. “I hurt someone too!” 

Her feet stopped walking. She looked down at them in surprise, resting on the green turf. It would be a very simple motion, to pick up on foot and swing it forward, but for whatever reason they weren’t obeying her.

“My fiancée,” Mr Summers said. “She was only trying to help me and I…”

He trailed off, and Tina wants to hear the rest so she asks;

“And you what?”

“I looked at her.” There was the small sound of tape being pulled off skin, and she turned around. He had taken his glasses off. He was peeling off surgical tape from his eyes, and she swallowed, wondering if she really wanted to see what lay underneath. But his closed eyes look whole. The only thing strange about them was a red glow behind beneath the eyelids, lighting up his face like some eerie figure out of a scary movie. What would happen if he opened his eyes?

“It’s my mutation,” he said. “I shoot concussive blasts from my eyes. She was a mutant too. She could defend herself from me. But the blast hit the dam wall, and she couldn’t defend herself against that.” There was the tiniest break in his voice. “She died, crushed under hundreds of feet of water, because of me.”

“Then you understand,” she said. “I can’t go back to that. I can’t be Tina. Because then I’d be –”

“Responsible.” Mr Summers put the tape back on, replaced the glasses. His tone was without censure or judgement. “I know.”

“I _can’t_ ,” she said again. He said nothing. Her breath caught in her throat. Tears blurred her vision. “I can’t.”

“I know.” He held out his hand, and this time she took it. His fingers tightened and he pulled her in, surprisingly solid and well-balanced for a man that had nearly tripped over a gravestone earlier. He wrapped his arms about her and just held her. She pressed her face into his jacket and sobbed.

“I didn’t mean – it was an accident – I didn’t mean –”

“I know. I know.”

She hadn’t nearly finished crying when she felt Mr Summer’s whole body tense. She hadn’t heard anything, but when she looked up, she saw Clark standing on the edge of the cemetery. She wondered how Mr Summers had known he was there. She started to pull away, and Mr Summer’s arms tightened about her. He felt safe and reassuring, so she decided not to break it just yet.

“Tina,” Mr Summers said quietly in her ear. “Tina, tell me where Lana is.”

She shook her head.

“Tina,” and there was real strain in his voice when he said her name. “Please. Where is Lana?”

She rested her forehead against his shoulder and thought of nothing at all.

“In the coffin.”

She must have used up everything when she cried, because the next few minutes were a blur. Mr Summers shouted something to Clark, and Clark ran to the coffin, and she didn’t know why they were both so relieved. It wasn’t as if she’d even finished putting the lid back on. She felt as if she was standing inside a bubble as the world flickered past outside. Clark and Mr Summers were arguing as Lana came round, and Tina had the feeling it was about her but couldn’t find the energy to listen in.

Then Mr Summers was putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Come on, Tina,” he said, and there’s a note of resignation to his voice. “Lets go before the police show up.”

Tina looked to see if Clark and Lana were coming. Clark was helping Lana sit up against a gravestone. Lana looked up, and her eyes meet Tina’s. Tina had the feeling she should be saying something here.

She just stood there, staring, until Mr Summers drew her away. 


	6. Cool

Chloe was only halfway through her story on Sean Kelvin. The print had to be done in an hour, her desktop kept mucking up the formatting, and worst of all, she’d run out of coffee. She deliberately focused on these problems, not thinking of cold hands and icy, eager breath on the back of her neck. 

Her computer changed the formatting again.

“Damn it!” She shoved her chair back and fought the urge to throw something at the screen. Clark had questioned if she was too close to the story, and she’d laughed off his concerns, citing journalistic integrity and so on, ignoring his sceptical expression. Giving up would be too much like admitting defeat. She was Chloe Sullivan dammit, and she was not going to let one little article beat her.

When the door opened, she didn’t look up from trying to de-size her font.

“Unless you have coffee or a magical editing fairy, you can get lost.”

“Well, I have one of the above.”

Chloe’s fingers froze on the keyboard. She looked up to see Mr Summers in the doorway, holding an extra-large Styrofoam cup.

But it was the figure next to him that made her fumble for her mobile with shaking hands. It was Sean-fucking-Kelvin back from the dead, looking more normal than he had any right to in his red football jersey, and looking at Mr Summers with an expression verging on worshipful.

“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!” Chloe blurted. “He’s _dead_! He’s supposed to be frozen solid in a lake somewhere!”

Mr Summers held up his free hand placatingly.

“Chloe, it’s okay.” Aside; “Tina, perhaps now’s not the best…”

“Right.” Sean’s face melted, _rippled_ , muscles and bones shifting to a smaller, more feminine shape, even as those huge shoulders collapsed, and ribcage drew in on itself. It was the eeriest thing to see Sean become Tina.

Chloe relaxed a little, but didn’t put the phone away.

“Oh yeah,” she sneered. “Like one serial murderer is better than another. I feel _so_ much safer right now.”

Tina flinched, glancing at Mr Summers for help.

“Perhaps you should wait outside,” he told her gently.

“Okay.” She slunk outside like a dog that had just been kicked, pulling the door closed behind her. Mr Summers made his way between desks to Chloe’s desk. He held out the cup.

“What is that?” Chloe said.

“It’s a double shot mocca on soy,” he said. “Also known as a truce.” He waited a moment while she didn’t take it. “I didn’t poison it.”

Chloe took the coffee from him and set it next to her keyboard.

“What do you want?” She asked warily. She wished Clark were here, or even Pete. Not that she thought they could handle Tina, but it would make her feel a little better to have the moral support. While she was wishing, she might as well wish for the whole of the Smallville police force and some professional bodyguards while she was at it.

“I need information,” Scott said. “And I hear you’re the go-to girl.”

“Rea-lly.” She sits down and reaches of a pencil. She’d been trying to weasel information out of him all term. Maybe now he’d finally give a little to get a little.

He’s still standing, and she abruptly realises he can’t see where the chair is. Embarrassed, she quickly stands up and moves one of the computer chairs over. He sits down and thanks her with no sign of mortification. Then again, it’s very hard to read his expression at the best of times.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, returning to her desk. “Anyway, why do you need my help? The way I hear it, you’re finding mutants just fine without my help.”

“Not well enough.” He turned his face away for a moment, mouth tight and dissatisfied. “That was good work on the Sean Kelvin case.”

It was Chloe’s turn to look away, gaze turning down to her keyboard.

“Yeah, well. They try to kill me, I get a story about it, right?”

“Are you alright?” Perhaps it’s because he sounds like he genuinely cares or maybe it’s finally catching up to her, but Chloe feels her tight control wavering.

“Yeah, of course.” Her voice chokes, and she grabs for a tissue. “Why wouldn’t I be?” She sniffs and wipes her eyes.

“I’m sorry you were hurt,” he says.

“I feel sorrier for Jenna Barnam,” Chloe shot back. He didn’t get annoyed, just nodded very slightly as if it was what he’d expected. _Jerk_. She knew exactly what he would have done if he’d caught up to Sean first. He’d have tried to have a sit-down so they could hug all their feelings out and hide him from the police just like he had Tina. “I guess I beat you this time, huh?” She didn’t bother keeping the triumph out of her voice.

He frowned.

“It’s not about who gets to them first,” he said. “Or writing articles. It’s about making sure that no one is hurt.”

“And you’ve been _so_ successful of late.”

She almost regretted her sarcasm. She wasn’t normally this bitchy. Stubbon, yes, and nosy and headstrong, but not bitchy. She didn’t know what was wrong with her tonight. First she was in tears, then she was biting the head off a man who hasd a homicidal mutant hanging onto his every word. Not exactly smart or safe.

“I’m sorry I didn’t stop him hurting you,” Mr Summers said quietly. He sounded like he means it. “I didn’t have all the facts. I assumed he was struggling to control a newly manifested power, not deliberately seeking out victims. If I’d known, I would have handled it differently. I made a mistake.” Judging from the harsh line of his mouth, he didn’t like admitting that. “I can’t make another. That’s why I need to know more about the mutants here.”

Chloe took a deep breath and scrubbed away the threatening tears.

“What do you want to know?” She is proud that her voice is level and firm.

“Everything. How it all started. Where they came from.”

“You seriously don’t know?”

“The mutants I’m accustomed to are of a…different origin.”

Chloe desperately wished she hadn’t left her tape recorder in her dad’s car. She quietly scribbled ‘ _different_ _mutants’_ on her notepad and ‘ _where_?’ in capital letters. If she could only figure out where Mr Summers was from, there was a story just waiting to be told.

“So what kind _are_ you accustomed to?” She asked, trying to keep her voice light and casual.

“It’s the ones in Smallville I’m interested in,” Mr Summers said, refusing to let himself be sidetracked. “I’d heard stories they come from meteor rocks, but I dismissed it as urban legends. Like saying your kids will be mutants if you share a bathroom with one.”

There was a studied neutrality to his voice when he said that last part. It was hard to tell – everything he said was rather dry and flat – but Chloe thought there might be something more there. She made a note on her writing pad; _discrimination_?

“But now I’m starting to think there might be something to it,” Mr Summers continued. “Those rocks keep turning up everywhere.”

He said that in a half-exasperated tone, and Chloe thought ‘why not?’ She’d never had someone to share her theories that would actually listen, and not just humour her the way Pete and Clark did.

“Do you know how the meteor rocks came to earth?” She asked.

“The meteor shower ten years ago,” Mr Summers said instantly.

“Bingo. The rocks contained a substance that scientists had never seen before. I’ve got a report somewhere round here that they published right after the meteor shower.”

“I’d like to read it, if you can get it translated into brail.”

“Sure, I guess. Anyway, the gist of it is that this substance emitted a low level of radiation of a type that no one had ever seen before. The scientists said that it was totally harmless." 

“But you don’t think so.”

“We were the most boring, wholesome town in existence until the meteor shower. After that, the weirdness started, and hasn’t stopped since.”

“You have a point.” Mr Summers conceded. “But your theory has a hole in it. If the radiation causes mutation, why aren’t you _all_ mutants? If you live here, you must have all been exposed at one point or another, but only a few manifest with amazing powers.”

“Well… maybe we need a certain amount in our system to get a power. Or maybe it needs something else, like stress or anger or fear to make it come out.”

“Like falling in a frozen lake.” Mr Summers smiled, and Chloe was appalled to find herself sitting up a little straighter under his approval. His smile faded as he ruminated: “It still doesn’t explain _why_ they go mad. Unless… it causes significant physiological changes. No reason why it can’t affect brain chemistry as well…” He’s talking more to himself than her now. “Jean would know better than I would…”

“Jean?”

Mr Summers shut his mouth, face going absolutely blank, and Chloe knew with a thrill of triumph that he had let something truly significant slip. She scribbled ‘Jean’ down on her notepad and underscored it three times. She opened her mouth to ask who Jean was, but saw the strain about his mouth. It reminded her of her father, after her mother left. She let the name go in favour of a gentler line of questioning.

“You’re not really Clark’s cousin,” she said. “Are you.”

“No.”

“Then who are you? How do the Kents know you?”

“They don’t.”  

Her eyebrows rose.

“You’re telling me that?”

“Why not? It won’t help you find anything else out about me, and lying for me was putting Clark in an awkward position.”

“Then why didn’t he just _tell_ me that instead of pussy-footing around–” She stops before she can blurt out Clark’s request for research.

“Clark’s a good kid,” Mr Summers says. “And believe me, I have no intention of causing trouble for him. I want nothing out what’s best for him.” He leaned forward a little. “Will you tell him for me?”

Chloe’s gaze slid away from the unreadable dark glasses. Mr Summer’s interest in Clark worried her, the same way that Lex’s interest did. It wasn’t a worry that was quantifiable or explicable. It niggled at the back of her mind, constant, almost subliminal, but unable to be dismissed entirely.

“Tell him yourself,” she said shortly.

“He won’t talk to me. Not since I helped Tina.”

“Yeah, I can get why.” Chloe took a sip of coffee, and found it really wasn’t bad. If he poisoned it, he’d used the good stuff. “Speaking of which, why is Tina walking around looking like Sean? That’s not much of a disguise.”

“Tina’s still wanted for the bank robbery and her mother’s death. Sean was an emancipated minor. No parents, an estranged uncle in England.”

Chloe was puzzled by the non-sequitar for a moment, before comprehension dawned.

“You’re going to steal his identity? My feelings about Sean aside, that’s just _sick_. Plus, your brilliant plan is never going to work if your little protégée ends up in prison for Sean’s crimes.”

Mr Summers looked smug.

“I’m sure that once the police check his fingerprints against those on the crime scene, that unfortunate misunderstanding will be cleared up.”

“Yeah, well…” That really wasn’t a bad plan. “How do you know I just won’t tell them everything?”

Mr Summers leaned forward a little, looking concerned.

“Because she’s a troubled girl who’s made a very bad mistake, and everyone deserves a second chance.”

Chloe made a ‘yeah, right’ sound. Mr Summers steepled his fingers beneath his chin.

“Alright. Here’s another reason. Because as far as mutants go, Tina’s a minnow. Bait fish. And you don’t eat bait fish. You use them to catch something bigger.”

Chloe swallowed.

“You’re saying if I… turn a blind eye…” She made a face at the words, not liking the taste of them. This wasn’t why she wanted to become a journalist. “Then you’ll lead me to other meteor freaks."

“Every one I find. With certain conditions.”

“I –”

“First, you won’t publish any story on a mutant that isn’t dangerous, or that I deem worthy of rehabilitation.”

“No way. You’ll want to rehabilitate every one!”

“Chloe, I’ve found _four_. Tina’s the only one who’s ever shown any sign of wanting to change.”

He had a point, so Chloe let it go. She could always write the story later. And that was when she realized she’d just agreed to his arrangement. She let her pencil drop and gave him a look that, had he been able to see, would have fried his synapses and cooked his brain like an egg.

“I’m still going to find out who you are, you know.”

“You’re welcome to try.” Mr Summers stood. “As always, Chloe, it’s been an experience. I’ll let you get back to your article.”

Chloe got up to open the door for him.

“Still going to find out who you are,” she told him, and wanted to smack him for the faintly amused smile that crossed his face. At least most of the subjects of her articles actually disliked her. Mr Summers would be a lot less annoying if Chloe didn’t get the sense that he genuinely liked her and enjoyed their little contests.

Tina-as-Sean was sitting on the plastic seats outside. She (he?) jumped up and hurried over to place a hand on Mr Summers’ elbow.

“Come on, Mr Summers. Lets go.” She led him down the hall, shooting a dark look over her shoulder at Chloe. Chloe held up her hands as if to say ‘you can have him’. She didn’t slam her office door, but it was a near thing.  


	7. Hourglass

Tina’s hand is shaking slightly. Cassandra rubs a thumb over the girl’s knuckles absently. People have one of two reactions when they come to her for a reading – scepticism or fear. It seems Tina is one of those who fears what her future holds.

The images blossom within Cassandra’s mind. Every reading is different, just as every person’s future is different. A person’s future can even change between readings, though that is rare. When the images fade, she lets go of Tina’s hand.

“Well?” Tina says, voice high and thin.

“What did you see?” Scott Summers’ voice is equally eager, though he tries to hide it.

“Scott, perhaps you should wait outside,” Cassandra says.

“Is it that bad?” Tina says in a small voice.

“Hardly,” Cassandra says. “But this is your future, not Scott’s.”

“I don’t mind –”

“No, she’s right,” Scott says. “I’ll be outside, Tina, if you need me.”

The tap-tap of his seeing stick makes it’s way outside.

“So?” Tina asks, trying and failing to sound casual. “What did you see?”

Cassandra wishes she could see the girl’s face. They have so much in common; both meteor mutants, and both have paid a high price for it. They should have met much earlier.

“Your future is unusual. I can see one path, one that _was_ , and a second path that _is_. Along the first path lies loneliness, obsession, and murder. That may still yet happen, if you allow it.” She lets that sink in a moment. “The second path, that you are walking now, is a better one. You will do great work, you and Scott. You will save people like you and me, not just their lives, but their souls. You will save them from the darkest places of themselves.”

Tina takes a sharp breath.

“I don’t know if I can – I’m not ready.”

“You will be,” Cassandra says placidly. “When you are needed, you will be ready. I saw it.”

She allows Tina to ruminate on that before adding:

“Now, if you will allow an old woman to get back to her puzzle…”

“Right. Sure.”

There’s scrape as Tina pushes back the chair and stands.

“One other thing,” Cassandra adds. “Whatever you want from Lana Lang – even what you haven’t realized you want yet – she can’t give it to you.”

Tina was silent for a moment, the only sound of her breathing.

Then her footsteps retreat into the hallway. Cassandra heard Mr Summer’s voice, and Tina’s quiet answer, the echoing hallways distorting the feminine tone pitch until it sounded almost male. The tap-tap of the seeing-eye stick faded into the distance.

Not for the first time, Cassandra wonders if she shouldn’t tell Scott what she had seen in his future; which was nothing. There were no certainties in Scott’s future, only possibilities. His fate was as murky as her own.

Familiar footsteps make her raise her face toward the doorway, as does the faint scent of expensive cologne and new roses.

“Well, you’re the last person I expected to walk through my door,” she says.

“I come bearing gifts,” says Lex Luthor’s voice.

She laughs softly, and puts Scott Summers and Tina Greer out of her mind.

“So did the Greeks.”

Lex’s footsteps make their way into the room. He says; 

“I wanted to take you up on your offer.” 


	8. Craving

“It must have been hard for her,” Mr Summers says as Jodie’s being loaded into the ambulance. “Not knowing what was happening, or who to trust.”

Clark shoots him a wary look. He has extremely mixed feelings on Tina and Mr Summers showing up to distract the meteor-crazed Jodie at a crucial moment. With the meteor rocks in Jodie’s garden, there had been a very real chance of him getting hurt. But he still doesn’t trust Mr Summers’ motives, and he trusts Tina even less. It’s blatantly obvious that her good behaviour is an attempt to please Mr Summers, not a real attempt to redeem herself. She’d set herself on fire if he asked and Clark has no doubts at all that she’d kill for him without batting an eyelid.

Perhaps that’s the whole point though, Clark thinks cynically. Mr Summers rehabilitates mutants, restores their lives to them – even if it’s walking around wearing someone else’s face – and gets unswerving loyalty in return. Maybe that’s why he’s so interested in Clark: he knows there’s something different about him, even if he doesn’t quite know what.

“I’m not a meteor mutant,” Clark says, quietly enough that the people nearby don’t overhear.

“It doesn’t mean you’re going to go crazy, you know,’ Mr Summers says like he wasn’t even listening. “All the meteor mutants we’ve encountered so far come from volatile or stressful situations. You come from a stable home and a supportive family. And even if mutants _are_ more prone to mental problems, Tina proves that it can be resisted.”

“For now,” Clark says. He’s not in any mood to forgive Lana’s would-be murderer, or the person who covered it up. “And I’m telling you the truth. I’m not a meteor mutant.”

There’s a brief pause.

“Perhaps another kind of mutant?”

“Not _any_ kind of mutant.” Which is the dead-set truth. For all Clark knows, he’s absolutely standard for his species.

Mr Summer sighs.

“Still don’t trust me, huh, Clark? That’s probably wise. Anonymity is a mutant’s first defence. Just remember that you’re not alone and if you ever want to talk, I’m here.”

Mr Summers doesn’t know how wrong he is. Clark’s even more alone that the mutants they encounter. He’s absolutely unique on this planet, maybe even the entire universe.

Mr Summers couldn’t possibly understand what that’s like.


	9. Jitters

Clark’s arm is trembling as he struggles to keep Lex and Earl from plummeting to their death. The waves of nausea from the meteor rocks in Earl are making him dizzy, his grip on the catwalk slippery with sweat. He’s never hated this particular weakness anymore in his life.

“Clark!” A voice shouts, and the catwalk quivers with new footsteps. Clark looks up to see one of his classmates nimbly picking their way across. 

“Ti – Sean,” he says, remembering just in time to use the right name. “I told you to stay with the others!”

‘Sean’ snorts and rolls his eyes in a manner reminiscent of a teenage girl.

“Mr Summers told me to look out for you. I can see he’s right. You just attract trouble, don’t you.”

Clark doesn’t have time to snark back, because a second later his wrist is being squeezed in a powerful grip and he’s being hauled up onto the catwalk, the others behind him.

“Why do you go near meteor rocks if they have this effect on you?” ‘Sean’ scolds Clark, absently yanking Earl the last foot and reaching down to grab Lex, taking the weight off Clark’s shaking arm. “Dumbass.”

“Someone had to do something,” Clark mutters, feeling small and stupid, and not liking the sensation very much. Tina is the crazy stalker, not him. Fortunately or unfortunately, the catwalk buckles before he can retort.

“This thing’s going to fall!” ‘Sean’ drags Clark to his feet, yanking him toward the exit. “Run!”

All four of them make it to the elevator just as the catwalk collapses in a crash of falling metal. Away from the meteor rock, some of the sickening weakness leaves Clark’s body and he can stand on his own two feet without help.

He looks down at the long drop and feels a dizziness that might be leftover nausea from the meteor rock or knowledge at how close they’d come to death. Who knows what would have happened if Tina hadn’t followed them.

“Sean…” He says.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. This makes us even, right? With the whole Lana thing?”

Clark looks at Tina, at the male face she wears now.

“This make you and me even,” he says slowly. “I don’t know that you and her can ever be even.”

She turns pink; odd to see on their old classmate’s face. Sean’s expression had rarely slid out of its arrogant, self-entitled lines.

“Fair enough,” she mutters, looking away.

“Sean,” Lex’s voice says.

Lex is looking at Tina in her male body, the same odd look in his eyes that he sometimes directs at Clark, as if at a puzzle piece that didn’t fit.

“How did you lift us up?” He says slowly.

Tina-as-Sean shrugs uncomfortably, the big footballer shoulders somehow unsuited to the delicacy of the gesture.

“Adrenaline? I’ve, ah, been working out.”

She looks at Clark for help, who says firmly:

“Lets get out of here before anything else collapses.”

As they make their way out of level three, he’s aware of the looks Lex flicks between him and Tina, like he’s discovered a secret but doesn’t yet know what it means. 


	10. Rogue

Scott knows there’s something going on with Clark this week. He suspects it has something to do with the bus that crashed outside the museum, but Clark had been even more defensive than usual, brushing off Scott’s questions on the matter. 

“If you did something by accident, it’s okay,” Scott had said, a little bit desperately. “Some abilities can be difficult to master at first, and these things happen.”

“I don’t _have_ any abilities,” Clark had said, as he always does. “I’m fine, Mr Summers.”

Scott has his doubts and his concerns. Clark has shown no signs of the kind of instability that would lead to trying to harm others, but Scott suspects he’s on the high end of the power scale. With that kind of power mishaps, even unintentional ones, can be costly.

Clark has so far flat out refused to talk about his mutation, and Scott is wary of bringing it up with the Kents. As many times as parents are supportive of their children’s differences, there are just as many that react negatively. He suspects Martha knows on some level – her fears of her son being taken away had to come from somewhere – but Jonathon Kent is worryingly conservative.

Scott is mulling over the problem when the school reception calls to tell him that Lex Luthor has stopped by to see him.

“Of course,” Scott says, and takes a few minutes to straighten up his office, putting away the brail-translated newspaper clippings that Chloe had given him. He’s sitting down when Lex’s footsteps sound in the hallway.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Lex says. He has the same smooth way of talking as his father, but without the unctuous undertone of contempt. Lex likes people and is desperate to be liked; a problem as worrying in its own way as Clark’s denial of his powers.

“Not at all,” Scott says. “Take a seat. This is a pleasant surprise.”

“I was hoping to talk to you about the incident at the plant.”

“The school excursion?” Scott had been half-expecting this. Tina had confessed to blurting out a few careless things in the heat of the moment that Lex might have been close enough to overhear. “I heard. Are you alright?”

“Perfectly fine. I wasn’t hurt at all, thanks to Sean.”

“He’s a good kid.”

“More than good.” Lex pauses, but Scott is immune to people using silence as a weapon. One could say he has an advantage, as he doesn’t have to look the other person in the eye and has an excellent poker face. “Clark as well,” Lex adds after a few seconds.

“They’re all good kids. Well, except perhaps for Chloe Sullivan. Her teachers have a few things to say on her.”

Lex gives the expected chuckle at the joke.

“I hear you’ve taken quite an interest in Clark and Sean,” he says, steering the conversation back on track.

“I’m a counsellor. I take an interest in all the kids.”

“Like Greg Arkin.”

Scott leans back, steeples his fingers.

“You obviously want to ask me something, Lex. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind, so we can stop circling around each other.”

As expected, blunt honesty takes Lex off-guard.

“Sean lifted all three of us onto the catwalk,” he says after a beat. “How was he strong enough to do that?” When Scott doesn’t immediately answer, he goes on: “And Clark. The first time we met, I could have sworn I hit him with my car. But he pulled me from the water. I can’t help but wonder if there’s something… different about them.”

Scott is silent for a few seconds, putting his answer together.

“Those are reasonable questions,” he says. “You have the right to ask them. But let me put it to you another way. If you were fourteen years old and woke up with strange abilities you didn’t know how to control, abilities that could isolate you from your loved ones, how would you feel?”

There was another pause, longer this time.

“Terrified,” Lex says at last. “I’d be terrified.”

Scott nods, keeps talking in a quietly reasonable tone.

“For a somewhat similar example, I’ve known kids who don’t come out as gay to their parents for years. Not because they’re afraid of rejection, but because they’re terrified of how it will change the underlying relationship. It takes enormous trust to reveal ourselves to others, and that kind of relationship can take years to build.”

“How did you do it?” Lex says pointedly. Scott smiles, letting a little sheepishness show.

“I didn’t. Clark doesn’t trust me further than he can throw me. Sean only trusts me because he has no one else, which is not healthy.” When Lex says nothing, Scott adds more kindly: “If you want to build that kind of relationship with Clark, just be there for him. Spend time with him. Make it clear you’re there if he needs it, but your friendship is not contingent on him confiding in you.”

He hears Lex draw breath to speak and quickly adds ruthlessly:

“Unless you’re only being friends for that reason, in which case you should re-think whether you should be around him at all.”

Lex says nothing, and Scott hopes that’s because he’s absorbing what Scott said, not trying to think of another tact.

“I care about Clark,” he says at last. “I don’t want to hurt him.”

Scott smiles blandly.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

They talk about inconsequential things for a few minutes for Lex excuses himself. He refuses to let Scott stand, saying he can find his own way out. In the doorway he pauses and says:

“You should get some wrap-around glasses, Mr Summers.”

“Oh?” Scott says mildly.

“When you’re standing in the shadows and I’m looking at just the right angle, there’s a faint red glow coming from underneath your glasses.” He departs, calling over his shoulder: “Have a pleasant day, Mr Summers.”


	11. Shimmer

“I don’t see why we have to help Lex,” Tina says, swivelling to and fro in her chair. She reverted to her natural form after Chloe locked the office door and Sean’s football uniform hangs baggily on her slim figure. “The guy’s a creep-o.”

She doesn’t see Mr Summer’s mouth tighten, but Pete does.

“It doesn’t mean he deserves to be stalked,” Mr Summers just says mildly.

“Yeah,” Chloe adds cruelly. “And besides, Lex is the one who got Mr Summers his job. If Lex dies, he’s screwed.”

Tina blinks and sits up a little straighter.

“Well why didn’t you say so? Lets save Mr Creep-o. What’ve we got?”

Chloe rolls her eyes and Clark looks like he’s trying to pass a kidney stone, but neither takes the opportunity to jump on Tina like they would have a few weeks ago.

It’s amazing how drastically their attitudes have changed. Not Clark so much; Tina had stopped him from falling to his death. Having someone save your life kind of necessitates being civil to them. But Chloe has done… if not a complete one-eighty, then has become a lot less antagonistic towards Mr Summers. She hadn’t even kicked up much of a fuss when Mr Summers suggested pooling resources to catch Lex’s stalker, so plainly something had happened to change her mind. 

Pete just wishes someone had kept him in the loop. He kind of resents being kept in the dark. 

“So I’ve been following the stalking case,” Chloe is saying. “I was sure it had to be a meteor mutant, because everyone was talking about something they couldn’t see...”

“And because all mutants are crazy and evil, right?” Tina says, smirking at Clark, who glares at her. 

“You said it, not me,” Chloe snaps. “Anyway, when Clark saved Victoria from drowning, he noticed her attacker left behind _this_.” She holds up a petrie dish filled with a green ooze.

“Gross,” Pete says, giving his honest, heartfelt opinion.

“Ew,” Tina agrees.

“Shut up. Look what it does!” Chloe unscrews the lid and dips her finger in the ooze. She rubs it between her fingers and they vanish.

“Holy shit,” Tina says, standing up.

“No way.” Pete cautiously reaches out to check that Chloe’s hands are still there.

“What’s going on?” Mr Summers says.

“Chloe just used this green cream that turned bits of her invisible,” Tina says, sounding awed.

Mr Summers straightens. 

“Chloe, wash it off.” His tone of voice makes Pete stop short of touching Chloe’s hands.

“Don’t worry it’s only temporary…”

“That substance is probably filled with meteor rock and whoever’s using it is certifiably crazy. Wash. It. Off.”

Chloe pales and runs for the sink in the corner, turning the tap and scrubbing her hands furiously underneath the stream of water.

Tina, curious, picks up the petrie dish and Pete says:

“Uh, Tina, I don’t know that you should touch that…”

“Relax. I think meteor rock’s already done all the damage to me it’s going to.” She sniffs at it. “Smells like roses.” She holds it out to Clark, who shakes his head, standing well on the other side of the room. Pete is thinking seriously about joining him.

“That’s the part I can’t work out,” Chloe says, still washing her hands in the sink. “If it’s a meteor mutant doing this, why do they need this cream stuff? I mean you don’t need to slap on a facial mask before turning into Sean.” She adds this last part to Tina, who shrugs.

“Unless it’s not the _person_ that’s the mutant,” Mr Summers says thoughtfully.

“What do you mean?”

“Mutation occurs everywhere in nature, not just humans. If meteor rocks cause it, then why not in an animal or a plant which then can be used to create this invisibility-substance.”

“Or it could be a half-person, half-rose thing,” Tina says, then adds defensively when Clark looks at her funny: “It could happen! That ooze could be their sweat or saliva or something.”

Chloe stares at her hand, revolted.

“You mean I might have touched –” She starts washing her hands again.

“Lets not rule anything out,” Mr Summers says. “This person needs to be stopped. If their invisibility isn’t innate, we need to find the source and destroy it.”

“How come?” Pete says. He realises this is his first real contribution to the conversation when Mr Summers looks at him. He swallows and says lamely: “I mean, it turns people invisible. That could come in handy…”

“The only person we know to use this substance is also insane,” Mr Summers says kindly. “I’m not willing to risk you kids using it, or risk what people might do if they got their hands on it. It’s not worth it.”

Pete doesn’t agree, but also senses he’s not going to get anywhere arguing. Everyone else has a reason to be here; he’s just here as Chloe’s sidekick. So he nods and says ‘okay’ like he agrees.

“We have two goals,” Mr Summers tells the room at large. “Stop the stalker, and if their powers do come from something else, destroy it.”

“I still say it’s Amy Palmer,” Clark says. “She’s obsessed with Lex.”

“Then I say we do a little breaking and entering,” Tina says, stretching her arms over her head. Except they extend just a little too far and her face ripples, and it’s Sean standing there. “Coming, Clark?”

“No, I’m going to warn Lex.”

“I’ll come,” Pete says, and gets a blink of surprise.

“You?” Tina says with some derision, looking him up and down.

“What, you think I can’t keep up?”

Tina shrugs.

“Suit yourself, homo sapien.”

“ _Tina_ ,” Mr Summers snaps, and Tina-as-Sean wilts under his glare. “If you can’t talk to humans without derision, how can you expect them to do the same to you? That goes for you too, Chloe. Speak to one another with respect.”

Chloe turns a little bit pink, furious and humiliated. Clark is watching all of this with a guarded look, like someone trying to both melt into the wallpaper and absorb every word.

“Clark, go find Lex,” Mr Summers concludes. “Chloe, I believe you have a story to work on. Tina, give me a minute with Pete.”

It says something about the command of Mr Summers’ presence that no one argues, no matter their personal issues. In a few seconds, the office is empty except for the two of them.

“I’m okay, Mr Summers,” Pete says.

“That’s good to hear,” Mr Summers says. “But I actually wanted to ask you about something else. How’s Jodie?”

Pete’s throat tightens.

“You know, no one else has asked me that,” he says hoarsely.

“No one else probably knows you’ve been visiting her.” Mr Summers’ voice is kind without being condescending. “How’s she doing?”

“Better. The doctors have her on a new diet. They can't stop the mutation, but at least they’re making sure she doesn’t get hungry.” Some days she even looks like the pretty, healthy girl that he’d first met. 

“Not many people would be able to forgive what she tried to do,” Mr Summers says carefully.

“She tried to make me leave,” Pete snaps. “She was fighting it. I don’t blame her for something she couldn’t control.”

Mr Summers smiles. Or, past Pete’s shoulder, it’s hard to tell.

“You’re a good kid, Pete,” he says. "And a good friend. Don't let anyone make you differently." 

“Thanks?” Though the words are straight out of a lifetime special, Pete still feels a warm glow. He'd gotten used to being overlooked his whole life; not quite good enough to stand out, not quite brave enough to rebel. It was always Chloe was going to break down barriers and Clark who was going to go places. Having a teacher tell him that he was special and apparently mean it... it's kind of cool. He clears his throat. “So I’m just gonna do that break-in with Tina…”

“Of course. Be careful.”


	12. Hug

Kyle has just finished hitching his trailer to the car when Scott Summers shows up. With him is the hulking quarter-back Kyle saw shape-shift into a pretty girl called Tina earlier today. Kyle also saw him/her nearly rip a car door off its hinges, so he’s not about to caste aspersions on anyone’s masculinity or lack thereof.

“You’re off then?” Sean/Tina says agreeably enough.

“Looks like. With Whitney and the assault case, I don’t think sticking around is in my best interests.”

“I don’t know,” Summers says. “A persuasive man like you could probably clear things up.”

Kyle pauses.

“You’re asking me to stay?”

“Actually, I’m warning you not to.”

Summers’ flat tone makes Kyle reassess him. When Clark took him to Summers for help, Summers had been cautiously friendly. That had turned into cool dislike when Kyle demonstrated his abilities, which Kyle tried not to be sore about. Most people are terrified by the idea of someone hijacking their mind. Kyle supposes it was too much to hope that fellow meteor-freaks would feel differently.

That doesn’t mean he’s taking it lying down, though.

“What is it that you don’t like about me, Summers?” He says. “Is it what I can do, or the fact that my powers actually work?”

It’s a shot in the dark; Summers had been vague on the subject of his own powers, and Clark had confided that Summers never used his powers, which made Kyle suspect they were faulty in some way.

Sean/Tina perks up, looking at Summers not unlike a dog hearing the word ‘walkies’. Summers, however, doesn’t get defensive or angry.

“What I don’t like about you, Tippet,” he says coldly. “Is that you used your abilities to force a fourteen year old to make a sexual advance on her best friend.”

For a second Kyle has no idea what he’s talking about. Then he recalls that he’d demonstrated his powers by asking Chloe to kiss Clark. He’d meant it as a joke, as a kind of harmless prank. It wasn’t like Chloe would remember and Clark would hardly be traumatised by a kiss from a pretty girl. But the way Summers says it, it sounds more like a felony.

“I was just demonstrating,” he says lamely.

“Next time,” Summers says crisply. “Don’t. And if I ever see you around my kids again, I’m going to come looking for you personally.”

Kyle is aware that he doesn’t really have any moral high ground here, but something about Summers’ dismissive superiority really irks him.

“And what?” He says. “Sic Tina here on me? I may have made one mistake, but it looks to me like ‘your kids’ are doing a hell of a lot of your dirty work.”

A muscle twitch in Summers’ cheek is the only sign that Kyle’s gotten to him.

“I promise you this,” he says. “If you ever pull anything like this again, it will be _me_ who comes after you, and it will be _me_ who puts you in the ground. Now get out of Smallville.”

“With pleasure.”

Kyle gets in the car and starts the engine. Tina/Sean leaves Summers’ side to approach the open window.

“Just so you know,” he/she says quietly in a curiously modulated voice that is neither quite Tina nor quite Sean. “I don’t believe for second that you walked up to Lana in the woods out of the goodness of your heart. Lana just seems to have this _effect_ on meteor mutants.” That handsome boyish face gives Kyle a bright, unsettling smile before the kid steps back. “Better not see you around, Mr Tippett.”

Fuck Smallville, Kyle thinks. He should have left it and its weirdness years ago.

All the same, perhaps he’ll be just a little more careful in future. No sense in inviting trouble. 


	13. Leech

“The hell, Clark?” Tina says, slamming the door on her way into Mr Summer’s office. She’s clutching a bloody shirt to her nose and the skin over her left eye was rapidly turning purple. “The fucking hell was _that_?” 

Mr Summers for once doesn’t say ‘language’, just shoos Clark in ahead of him and closes the door behind them. 

“Sit down, Tina,” he says. “Clark, there’s a first aid kit in the second draw of the filing cabinet.” 

“I know.” Clark can’t quite bring himself to admit he’d thoroughly x-rayed Mr Summer’s office ages ago. He gets out the first aid kit and starts dabbing at the cut on Tina’s chin. The gravel had torn her up pretty good when Eric punched her.

Knowing how strong his powers are, Clark is just glad that the punch hadn’t broken her _neck_.

“I judge we have about ten minutes before Chloe comes looking for us,” Mr Summers says, pulling up a seat. “So if there’s anything you want to tell us Clark, now’s the time.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Clark says, and Tina growls under her breath, snatching the cotton swab at him and treating her own wound.

“How about yes, I’m a mutant, and these are my powers so your friends aren’t walking in blind when some moron steals them! Shit!” This last bit is when she dabs a bit too hard at her own flesh.

“I’m not a meteor mutant,” Clark says, and Tina scoffs. Clark admits more softly: “…but I do – or I did – have powers.”

There’s a pause.

Clark doesn't dare look at them. He doesn't dare _breathe_. 

It's not like he's admitting it anything they don't already know. Mr Summers has been pretty blunt about the fact he suspects Clark is a meteor mutant, and Tina has been teasing him about this since the day at the plant. She sees no reason to hide what she is - at least around their inner group - and thinks Clark's a moron for not just coming out and saying it. So it's not like Clark's really giving up anything. 

Except he finds there's a world of difference between plausible deniability and outright admitting something. There's a big green knot of fear in his middle like a chunk of meteor rock and he has to wipe his suddenly sweaty hands on his jeans. 

“You  _are_ aware that’s like having sex with men, but not being gay?” Tina says at last. 

“I’m not in denial,” Clark snaps, nettled. “I just didn’t get my abilities from meteor rocks.”

“Then where did they come from?”

“None of your business.”

“And _that_ would be the denial talking.”

“It’s not unknown,” Mr Summers interrupts. “I’ve known mutants who never encountered meteor rocks at all. Thank you for telling us,” he adds to Clark, who shrugs uncomfortably at the ring of sincerity. “In any case, the important thing is to get these powers away from Eric. What can we expect from him?”

“Um…” Clark really doesn't feel ready to talk about specifics (just a general confession made him feel sick with nerves), but if Tina and Mr Summers don't know, they're going to get themselves killed. “He'll be really fast. Really strong.”

“I got that,” Tina snarks. “From the part where Eric bench-pressed a car.”

“And tough. Like I can shove my hand in a wood-chipper tough. And I can see through things, like an x-ray. And I heal really fast. And my reflexes are pretty good…”

Tina whistles under her breath.

“Shit, Clark. You really hit the lottery, didn’t you.” She sounds more admiring than annoyed now.

Mr Summers is staring off into space or…whatever it is he does when his face it tilted upwards at the ceiling.

“We’re going to have to be very careful,” he says. “No mistakes, no putting ourselves at risk. Our first priority is stopping Eric from hurting anyone, and that includes us.”

“You can’t tell Chloe or Pete,” Clark blurts out, gripped by unreasoning terror, and Mr Summers making a shushing motion.

“We won’t. That’s your secret to tell.”

Tina makes a face at Clark.

“You seriously haven’t told them? I thought they were your friends.”

“They are, I just –” There’s a loud knock on the door and Mr Summer says:

“That’ll be Chloe. Clark, get the door. Tina, no talking about this in front of Chloe or Pete. We’ll meet up here after school and come up with a plan to stop Eric.”


	14. Kinetic

After his incident with the meteor rock tattoo (his mother calls it the ‘incident’ as if she could whitewash the whole event) Whitney insists on going straight back to school.

“Why bother?” His dad says over breakfast. “You won’t be getting that scholarship now.”

Whitney grits his teeth and wills himself not to snap back. His father had been expressive over the loss of the scholarship, though he’d yet to say two words about the meteor rock infection. It was as if for his parents Whitney’s brush with mutation didn’t exist.

“Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t finish up the school year,” he says steadily. “Finish what I started and all. You’re always telling me I should commit to things.”

“Not pointless things.” His father pours himself another cup of coffee. “Suit yourself. It won’t do you any good. You’d be better off working at the store.”

Whitney lowers his eyes to plate, and clenches his teeth. The end of school year cannot come soon enough. The minute he’s able, scholarship or no scholarship, he’s out of here. He doesn’t care if he has to enlist in the damn army, he’s not sticking around in Smallville to let his father shape his life.

At school, he doesn’t go straight to find Lana as he usually does. Instead he walks quickly to the guidance office and raps sharply on the door.

“Come in, Whitney,” Mr Summers’ voice says, unnerving him for a moment. Whitney sucks it up though and walks in.

“I want some answers,” he says belligerently.

“Hello Whitney.” Mr Summers lays down a report and indicates the chair across from him. “Take a seat, won’t you.”

Whitney hesitates, then pulls up the chair sulkily.

“I want some answers,” he repeats.

“Then you’ll need to ask some questions.”

“You knew what was happening to me, with the tattoo. You, Sean, Clark, and Ross and that nosy Sullivan chick. You kept following me all over the place and trying to talk to me.”

“That’s not a question,” Mr Summers points out mildly. “How is that tattoo anyway? Have you experienced any side effects?”

“No.” Whitney rubs his arm, where the needle had gone in. “No vibrating through stuff anymore. It’s gone.”

“A pity. It was a wonderful gift.”

Whitney stares at Mr Summers, trying to work out if he’s fucking with him.

“You’re up to something.”

“Yes, Whitney. It’s called guidance counselling. I do it for all my students, even the meteor infected ones.”

“So that was it? You were just looking out for me?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

Whitney doesn’t really have an answer to that. While he’s trying to work it out, Mr Summers opens a drawer. 

“While you’re here, lets go over your college applications.”

“I haven’t made any.”

“Exactly. Final submission is this Sunday, but I think we can squeeze them in. What were you thinking of studying?”

Being asked about his college applications is painful, like having salt rubbed in an open wound.

“It doesn’t matter. I won’t get in.”

“Then it won’t hurt to try. Unless you’re planning to drop out before the end of the year?”

Whitney quickly shakes his head. That would mean working at the store with his dad.

“No,” he admits.

“Then you might as well submit applications. I’ve looked at your academic history, and you seem to score well in maths. Have you ever thought about engineering?”

Half an hour later, Whitney walks out of Mr Summer’s office carrying five applications and pamphlets for several colleges in Metropolis. His head is spinning, not unlike the meteor rock infection, when the world wasn’t quite how he thought it was. Seeing it from a different perspective.

“Where were you?” Lana asks when he joins her at her locker. “I didn’t see you first period.”

“Guidance office.”

“Oh!” She spots the pamphlets and beams. “So you _are_ going to apply. I told you, you should. I’m glad you listened to me.”

“…yeah, sure.” He lets her think that it was her, not Mr Summer’s sneaky ambush that had him doing this. “I’m gonna go fill these out. See you at lunch.”

He doesn’t know what the hell Mr Summer is up to, but he’s going to find out.

_After_ he sends the applications in. No point in discarding good advice, just because of the source.


	15. Zero

The old Talon has had a new coat of paint. Scott can smell it. Lex takes great pleasure in describing the health posters on the wall, the tidy reception desk, the pot plants in the corners. He leads Scott to the desk and tells him to run his fingers across the cool surface.

Scott’s fingers find words in Braille: _Talon Youth & Health Clinic. _

“Lana’s going to be disappointed.” he says, bemused. “She wanted the old coffee and cinema to open.”

“Oh, that.” Lex dismisses it with all the casual disregard of someone inexperienced with the fragility of the hopes and dreams of teenage girls. “This is more important.”

“It certainly has more purpose,” Scott allows. “I’ll admit I’m a little confused, though. There’s a GP right down the block.”

He suspects that there’s more to it than a simple health clinic though. Lex is many things, but straightforward isn’t one of them, and neither is understated. His gestures tend to be big and grandiose, like the truck that Jonathon Kent had made Clark return.

Scott senses, however, that Lex is burning to tell him what this is about, so he lets Lex unfold his project as he likes. The man has a sense of theatrics to rival Magneto. 

“The difference,” Lex says, with just enough of a pause to create suspense. “Is that most GP’s don’t know how to identify and manage the meteor-infected. I have selected doctors who can.”

Scott's grip tightens on his seeing-eye stick. _Don’t jump to any conclusions,_ he warns himself. Hear him all the way out. Belting out accusations is the worst way to deal with Lex.

“I hope you haven’t put ‘meteor-infected’ as one of your official specialisations,” he says lightly. “Your father might have something to say about that.”

“So far as my father’s concerned, this is one of my craven attempts to win this town’s approval,” Lex says dismissively. “He doesn’t know anything. We’re being careful with the marketing, but all the euphemisms imply it’s about sexual health. People don’t ask too many questions and it lets us use phrases like ‘changes to your body’ and ‘mood swings’ that will ring a chord with the ones who need it.”

“Clever.” Scott relaxes somewhat. He wishes Lex had spoken to him about this before instead of springing it on him, but at least he's given some thought to preserving anonymity. And to be fair, Smallville really does need a place like this. A lot of mutants need specialised medical assistance, particularly meteor-mutants who seem to go crazy at the drop of a hat. A health clinic hidden in plain sight is better than the other options Scott has known mutants to resort to, like back-alley doctors and exorcisms at the local church. “Where did you get the idea?”

“From you.”

“Me?”

“You said that meteor mutants are scared to trust anyone. It occurred to me that it would be better to make help available for them now instead of waiting for them to ask for it.”

“I didn’t use the specific term ‘meteor mutant’,” Scott reminds him gently.

“Really? Perhaps I read too much into it.” Lex’s unconcerned tone says he’s content to play the plausible deniability card, but not to take him for a fool either. Lex is certainly one of Scott’s more interesting students, for all that he’s well out of high school.

For a start, this isn’t _quite_ what Scott meant when he said to be there for Clark. Because Clark is the intended target of this place, even if the rest of the town benefits as well. Granted it’s a more appropriate form of gift-giving than a truck to a fourteen year old, but it’s still Lex falling back on his default method of expressing emotions. It worries Scott, but a lot about Lex worries him. No emotionally healthy twenty-one year old should be so desperate for the friendship of a fourteen year old.

If Clark didn’t so clearly hold the upper hand in their relationship, Scott would be inclined to agree with Jonathon Kent and view Lex’s interest as threatening.

“So?” Lex says, pulling Scott out of his thoughts. “What do you think?”

His hopefulness isn’t as well hidden as he thinks, and Scott puts aside his misgivings for another day. Right now, Lex deserves the praise he’s fishing for.

“I think it’s exactly what this town needs,” he says firmly. “It’s a brilliant idea.”

“Good, because I need your help to make it work.”

With a sense of foreboding, Scott realises that he might have mis-identified the target of Lex’s gift-giving. 

“How so?”

“You’ve done good work as a guidance counselor. What do you say to running your own clinic?”


	16. Nicodemus

Two days after Jonathan Kent tries to kill Scott with a shotgun, Scott catches a taxi over to the Kent farm.

“Scott!” Martha says when she opens the door. She sounds genuinely pleased. “What a lovely surprise – I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I thought there might be a few things Jonathan and I need to clear the air over. Is he around?”

“In the living room. Only out of hospital yesterday and already he wants to be up and around helping with the farm. Here, take a seat and I’ll fetch him.”

Scott lets her guide him to the kitchen table and sits down. He hears her footsteps retreat to the living room, quiet voices, and then Jonathan’s slower tread approaching.

“Summers,” Jonathan’s voice is reserved.

“Mr Kent,” Scott replies evenly. “How are you feeling?”

“Less like I want to take a shot-gun to my son’s guidance counselor.” Jonathan pauses. “I apologise for that.”

He sounds like he’d rather have a root-canal than be saying those words.

“You don’t need to apologise. You were under an influence.” Scott folds his hands in his lap. “From what I can tell, the flower brought out the most basic impulses. Urges that are usually repressed or ignored, and then magnified.”

“You better not be implying what I think you’re implying. I don’t go around wanting to kill people.”

“Not that far, no. But you do view me as a threat on some level because I know Clark’s secret.”

Scott is expecting what happens next, and keeps his expression still as the table shudders under the impact of Jonathan’s hand.

“Are you threatening my son?” 

Jonathan’s a strong man, but he’ll have to try harder to intimidate someone that once amused himself annoying Logan. Scott’s fairly certain he’s got Jonathan’s measure now. Until recently he’d worried that Jonathan was one of those parents that lived in denial of their child’s mutation and would react with fear and hate when that illusion was threatened. Then Jonathan had showed up on the clinic doorstep, out of his mind from the Nicodemus flower infection, and had ranted about Scott exposing his son. It had all clicked together in Scott’s mind; not fear of his son’s differences, fear of what the world would _do_ to him because of it. An altogether different kettle of fish.

“No, I’m not threatening Clark,” Scott says, keeping his calm and level. “I promise you I don’t intend to hurt him, or blackmail him, or influence him in ways that could be harmful to himself or others.”

“Then what the hell do you want from him?”

“What I want for any student. I want him to be safe, happy and to know that he’s not alone.”

Jonathan pauses. 

“That’s all?” He says suspiciously. 

“It’s a dangerous world out there for mutants. Having that support network there… it helps.”

Jonathan is silent. The old clock ticks quietly in the corner.

“You keep my son out of your mutant affairs,” he says finally. “Whatever you get up to, that’s your business. I don’t want Clark having any part of it.”

“If that’s what you want, I’ll respect your wishes. However, your son has a tendency to pop up whenever a new mutant emerges, and as we both know, there’s very little I can do to stop him.”

“Are you saying no?”

“I’m saying Clark isn’t likely to listen to me if I tell him not to get involved. He’ll listen to you.”

As expected, the subtle flattery mollifies Jonathan.

“I’ll talk to him.” 

“You do that.” Scott rises to his feet, picks up his seeing-eye stick. “You may want to consider this, though. If Clark is showing an interest in other mutants, he may benefit more from exploring that interest than repressing it.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying he’s _lonely_ , Mr Kent.”

Scott shows himself out. 


	17. Stray

Mr Summer is quiet. Not in the way that Clark is silent, who reads to Ryan’s powers like absolute silence; a vacuum of sound. Mr Summers’ thoughts are there, they’re just very quiet, repressed and small where most people are big and loud. Ryan finds it restful.

He doesn’t realise that Mr Summers is doing it on purpose until there’s an argument in the clinic office. The social worker is asking all these questions about Ryan being fostered by a blind man, and Mr Summers is answering calmly and patiently, but toward the end, Ryan can feel his thoughts gone jagged and sharp with irritation. He understands her having to question his ability to care for a child, but this is going on offensively long, and she's asking the same things over and over again, can't she just listen to what he's saying -

As they leave, Mr Summers rests his hand briefly on Ryan's shoulder, and Ryan flinches away from his annoyance. Mr Summers pauses and says: 

“Sorry, Ryan.” His thoughts immediately become even smaller, tiny and muffled like they’re underwater. "Is that better?" 

Ryan waits until later when they’re at home before blurting out:

“How did you do that? Your thoughts were big, and now they’re small.”

Mr Summers smiles. Ryan likes the way he smiles. Lots of people smile while their thoughts are mean or angry, but Mr Summer never smiles unless he means it.

“I used to know other telepaths.”

“Really?”

“The man who raised me, and the woman who – the woman who I was going to marry.” His thoughts are still small, but the feeling coming off him is sad. So sad. “They taught me how to block my thoughts from casual perusal. It won’t protect from a deliberate read, but it makes it easier for them to avoid picking up any…unnecessary chatter.”

Ryan thinks it’s a funny way of talking about all the stuff that goes through people’s heads. Most of the time none of it’s important or interesting.

“Where are they now?” He says. “Could they teach me to use my powers? Make it not as bad?”

But Mr Summers is shaking his head.

“I’m sorry, Ryan,” he says, and he opens up just enough that Ryan can tell he means it. He really means it. “I was brought here from somewhere very far away, and I don’t know how to get back.”

“You could ask Mr Luthor,” Ryan says hopefully. “He’s smart, and Clark is really, really fast…”

“It’s not a matter of distance.” Mr Summers makes his thoughts bigger then and – oh, Ryan hadn’t known you could do that. Make one kind of thought bigger while keeping the others small and secret. Like opening a doorway just wide enough to give a glimpse inside.

Mr Summers shows him where he came from, how he came here, how his home is so impossible to reach, like the world is a room, and Summer’s home is in the next room, on the other side of an impassable wall.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan says. He touches Mr Summers’ hand, not sure if it’s allowed. Some adults could be funny about being touched. “If I was strong like her, I’d help you go home.”

“I know you would, Ryan.” Mr Summers’ squeezes his hand and lets go. “How about I teach you how to make your thoughts quiet? It might not help, but it might give you some ideas about how to make it work in reverse.” 


	18. Reaper

Whitney’s hands are shaking as he tries to unscrew his hip flask. It takes half a minute to get it open and he takes a gulp that burns going down. He’d take more, but Kent is watching him with those big judgmental eyes.

“Fuck off, Kent,” Whitney says. “My dad nearly got disintegrated by a meteor mutant.” 

“I didn’t say anything,” Kent mutters, looking away, and Whitney feels bad for a moment. Kent’s only a freshman, albeit one with an annoying crush on Whitney’s girlfriend that isn’t as unreciprocated as Whitney would like. He holds out the flask.

“Drink?”

“No thanks.”

“C’mon. Don’t be a dork. We deserve it after tonight.”

Kent hesitates then takes a sip. Impressively for a freshman, he doesn’t wince or cough.

“Interesting taste,” he says, passing the flask back. Whitney takes another sip.

“So is it like this all the time?”

“What is?”

“Chasing around after meteor mutants.” Whitney rolls his eyes as Kent starts fumbling denials. “Kent, shut up. You and Sullivan are always sniffing around when some meteor-freak shows up. And the night a meteor-freak tries to murder my dad, Mr Summers and Sean show up on my doorstep. I’m not an idiot. I can add two and two. You guys have some kind of...monster-hunting club.”

He pronounces it with more confidence than he feels. It’s the only conclusion he can come up with after weeks of watching Mr Summers and his chosen posse of students, but it still sounds insane.

Luckily, Kent can’t lie for shit.

“It’s not really a club,” he protests. “It’s just someone needs to do it, and not many adults believe what’s going on so…” He shrugs, scuffing his shoe in the dirt like it’s fascinating.

Whitney studies him as a new and horrible thought pops into his mind.

“Lana’s not in it, is she?” It would explain why she and Kent were always hanging out. He’s not sure what’s worse; that his girlfriend might be cheating on him, or that she’s going to get herself killed hunting monsters.

“What? No, no, no.” Kent shakes his adamantly. “Lana doesn’t know anything about it. Meteor-mutants just seem to like her, for some reason.”

“Oh.” And suddenly Kent’s hovering about Lana – despite repeated warnings – makes sense. “You’re trying to protect her, aren’t you. You’re doing bodyguard duty.”

Kent turns red, which is as good as a confession, and Whitney punches him in the shoulder.

“Dumbass. Why didn’t you say anything before? I thought you were trying to steal my girlfriend!” He wants to laugh; he feels light-headed with relief.

“You’re…okay with this?” Kent says tentatively.

“Kent, you’re welcome to stop my girlfriend getting killed any time you like. But next time.” He jabs a finger into Kent’s chest. “Next time, you tell me who and what’s after her, so I know to start carrying round a baseball bat. Got it?”

Kent nods stupidly. Moron, Whitney thinks affectionately. Save a guy’s life from a car crash, rescue him from a kryptonite gang, and Kent still can’t admit that he’s trying to save Whitney's girlfriend, not steal her. Kent has some serious communication issues.

“So, now that I’m in the know, what was that whole thing with Coach Arnold about?”

“Meteor rocks in the sauna.”

“No fucking way. And what about Sean? Did he really go crazy back in November?”

“Um, you’ll need to ask him about that. It’s kind of private...”  


End file.
